Someone was smart enough to write up a system that inserts an extra flyer in every new county library card, that goes to a city resident, to let them know that they won’t be allowed to make book hold requests. In a library system with 45+ branches over hundreds of miles, that’s basically saying, “this card is useless to you, unless you can afford to drive all over the place”.
They weren’t smart enough to make that a prominent notice during the on the online application form, once you give them a Seattle residence.
Cost of inserting an extra piece of paper in a mailing? more than zero times number-of-new-cards.
Cost of inserting an extra piece of html in the application webpage? more than zero, but only once.
Add in the chances that some of the cards you mailed out will never be used because of the policy.
Add in the costs of fulfilling interlibrary loan requests from the city library. The library that will charge the same patron $5. I’m sure they’ll send on some of that money, but seems like a whole lotta waste when the county library could just charge the fee themselves, saving wear and tear on the poor book, if nothing else.
I blame Tim Eyman, just like I blame him for the way Olympic Security guards stood by and watched a 15 year old girl get kicked in the head, after she came up to them begging for help. They were chosen because they are cheaper, because they aren’t paid to intervene, only watch. They replaced effective guards that were too expensive after Tim cut transportation taxes.